MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Elections has removed from the voters list close to a million names in Metro Manila ahead of the 2010 national elections, an official said Saturday.

“The election officers, together with the members of the Election Registration Board, have deactivated 974, 145 registered voters (in Metro Manila),” said Comelec National Capital Region director Michael Dioneda.

“This figure represents the number of registered voters who failed to vote in the last two elections and because of that they would be removed from the active list,” Dioneda said.

The NCR elections chief said that of the total number of purged voters, 246,288 came from Quezon City, 245,437 from Manila, 106,664 from Caloocan, 98,327 from Pasig and 67,443 from Makati.

Aside from those who did not vote during the May 2007 midterm elections and in the October 2007 village and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK, Youth Council) polls, Dioneda said the poll body was also “removing the names of dead voters” in close coordination with the civil registry offices.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said that “deactivation is part of the poll body’s efforts to clean the voters list.”

He advised the deactivated voters, who would be immediately notified by mail, to apply for reactivation of their registration records in their local Comelec offices on or before the December 15 deadline.